1. Introduction
The introduction of a new crop or new cultivar among farmers is the result of a complex conjuncture of a broad range of technologies. The final outcome—the farmer adopting the cultivar and successfully harvesting the crop—is dependent on a long chain of steps, which involves a large array of different technologies, often applied in geographically distant places and within different economic, social, and legal contexts.
The first step in the chain is the selection of appropriate parent breeding lines of cultivars. These parent cultivars are chosen on the basis of specific, genetically determined characteristics. The second step is the crossing of these cultivars. Crossing produces a large number of genetically different offspring. Only a very small number of these offspring will prove, after an evaluation of their performance, to have the right genetics for further use, for instance because they produce more dry matter per hectare. If the crop, as in the case of maize, is reproduced by seed, the breeder will have to perform the crossing on a continuous basis in order to provide a sustained supply of the desired genome to the farmer. If the crop is reproduced vegetatively, as in the case of sweetpotato, the multiplication of the genome is no longer dependent on the breeder. The farmer can simply perform the multiplication himself by retaining certain parts of the plants, e.g., cuttings of the vines in the case of sweetpotato.
The upside of the use of vegetative material for multiplication is that it is an excellent way to preserve the genetic characteristics of a crop. But there is also a down side: over time, the material will gradually become polluted with accumulated disease organisms that are present in the propagation material. These organisms may enter the plant though vectors such as aphids. Contamination may also be the result of the use of contaminated tools, for instance for the cutting of the vines (see for example [14] and [16]). When, for example, an insect contaminates a plant with a viral disease, this virus will spread through the plant. If parts of this plant are used to produce a new generation, this generation will also be contaminated. Over a few generations, the crop will be infected by a series of diseases, which accumulate in the material. As a result, its productivity will diminish and the gains obtained through breeding will be lost [9], [19] and [20]. The combination of several infections of for example different viruses may exacerbate the impact on production [11]. The impact of the accumulation of diseases in sweetpotato varieties is clearly visible in Mozambique, where diseases are widespread among sweetpotato cultivars, affecting mostly local germplasm and at least one cultivar introduced by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) [40].
One way to avoid contamination is the transfer of the reproduction from the farmers' fields to the laboratory, where the material is multiplied through tissue culture. A laboratory that is able to determine whether the material is contaminated, can exercise positive pressure on the crop by selecting only disease-free material for multiplication. It is also possible to treat the parent material and remove the disease organisms. If this laboratory has the equipment to remove the contamination, it will be able to produce healthy copies of contaminated parents [9]. Available techniques include meristeme tissue culture and cryotherapy [41].